Elizabeth Davies: Will GPS show me the way?

Friday

Nov 21, 2008 at 12:01 AMNov 21, 2008 at 8:17 PM

I’m really a map kind of girl. You have to be, in my line of work. Editors don’t take kindly to journalists who can’t dig up even basic information, such as how to get from Point A to Point B. Surely, they reason, a reporter is not going to uncover the next Watergate if she can’t even find the nearest Walgreens.

Elizabeth Davies

I’m really a map kind of girl.

You have to be, in my line of work. Editors don’t take kindly to journalists who can’t dig up even basic information, such as how to get from Point A to Point B. Surely, they reason, a reporter is not going to uncover the next Watergate if she can’t even find the nearest Walgreens.

And so, by sheer necessity, I’ve come to love my maps over the years. Mapquest.com and RandMcNally.com are saved on my computer’s “Favorites” list. I keep an entire U.S. atlas, plus city maps, in my car. And most importantly, my pride isn’t hurt one bit if I have to stop to ask for directions.

But past experience tells me that I’m not in the norm here. More than one friend has gotten lost on their way to my house, telling me accusingly about their mishap even while admitting that they brought neither a map nor my written directions. Likewise, plumbers, florists and furniture-delivery men consistently call my house, asking for directions. This particularly irks me, because I believe it is their job to not only carry a map but to use it liberally.

Alas, I think the paper street map is fighting a losing battle. It is, after all, being replaced by the increasingly popular GPS.

In case you haven’t picked up a Best Buy ad in the past several years, personal global positioning systems are mounted right into your car. They have maps pre-loaded into their tiny computer brains, and they will give you step-by-step instructions as you drive.

The downside to GPS, in my opinion, is that the system will never actually tell you to consult a map or stop and ask for directions. In its little computer brain, the GPS always is consistently, annoyingly right. This makes it extremely popular among men, even though it has been known to send drivers the wrong way down one-way streets.

I’ve used a GPS exactly one time in my life: while camping in the barren Nevada desert. This is the type of activity GPS excels at: helping you get around a place with no 1) gas station attendants, 2) street signs or 3) actual streets. In this case, GPS serves to prevent the frightening “Moses episode,” in which you find yourself wandering around the desert for 40 years.

Outside of the desert, however, I don’t see much need for one. But because I’m married to a member of the species who can’t help but drool over these things, I recently took the plunge and went GPS shopping. It was a particularly painful experience, seeing as I’m the kind of woman who feels I should actually be paid to set foot in an electronics store. There are no shoes, no purses, no cosmetics and no clothes in these stores. The prices are ridiculous. People use funny words such as “bytes” and “watts.” It’s like forking over half a paycheck to shop on Mars.

Because I wanted to keep my shopping trip as brief as possible, I did a bit of research ahead of time on GPS products. This entailed asking other women which system their husbands liked, then narrowing it down to the least-expensive ones. I then price-shopped online, found the best deal and headed into the store.

Of course, as these things go, I opened the paper the next day to find a competitor’s ad offering the same thing for $20 less. Presumably, I could return the original GPS in exchange for the cheaper one. But as moms of toddlers know, some things just aren’t worth $20 — and prying your child’s fingers off every breakable electronic in the store is one of them.

But perhaps this whole GPS thing will wind up to be a turning point for me. Maybe I’ll find that folding up my old-fashioned maps should be a thing of the past, that the GPS is something I just can’t live without.

Hey, if it learns to give a pedicure and facial with those directions, I might just be on board.

Rockford Register Star

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